PLEASE HAVE KNOWLEDGE IN THIS AREA
prior to beginning work on this discussion, read the required chapters from the text and review the required articles for this week. Over the course of the past weeks, we have considered the use of medications in the treatment of various psychological disorders. This discussion will provide you with an opportunity to give an informed appraisal on the use of drugs to treat disorders and defend your stance based on your judgment of the literature. In your initial post, describe what you believe are the greatest strengths and weaknesses of using the medications to treat psychological disorders. Evaluate the employment of psychoactive drugs in the treatment of disorders over the lifespan from both an ethical and risk-benefits perspective. Summarize the theories of psychiatric disease and the scientific rationale behind its treatment through the employment of drug therapies. Explain what you believe to be the greatest challenges in the use of psychoactive medications over the next several years. Support your statements with references and logical arguments.
Conner, D. F. (2011, August 11). com/adhd/problems-overdiagnosis-and-overprescribing-adhd” target=”_blank” class=”external” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Problems of over diagnosis and overprescribing in ADHD (Links to an external site.). Psychiatric Times. Retrieved from http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/adhd/problems-over…
- In this piece a physician takes an overarching view of the issues behind ADHD.
Dolan, E. W. (2011, August 7). Antidepressant use increasing among those with no psychiatric diagnosis. (Links to an external site.) The Raw Story. Retrieved from http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/07/antidepressa…
- This is an opinion piece on the important issue of psychiatric drug use.
Gup, T. (2013, April 2). Diagnosis: Human (Links to an external site.). The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/opinion/diagnosi…
- This is an insightful opinion piece about the problem with psychiatric diagnosis considering the range of human behavior.
I have included some resources that you can use
AN EXAMPLE OF THE WRITING AN EXAMPLE PLEASE DO NOT USE
EXAMPLE BELOW PLEASE DO NOT USE ANY OF THE MATERIAL IT IS JUST AN EXAMPLE
According to the DMS-IV psychiatric diseases are defined as “a mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion, regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning” (Maisel, 2013). Based on the judgment of the literature many authors believed that drugs worsened symptoms, but others also thought it was necessary to be on medications combined with psychotherapy to help get the best results of treatment for mental disorders. Advokat, Comaty, and Julien (2014) suggest that pharmacotherapy raises concern about the use of questionable diagnostic criteria, the reckless prescribing of psychotropic drugs for children, and the ethical corruption of pharmaceutical researchers, both in academia and industry (595). Some psychologist suggest that the prescribing of psychoactive drugs has been responsible for causing more harm than good to patients with disorders. One of the most dangerous risk factors linked to the administration of drug intake by patients who are given psychotropic medication is the chances of iatrogenic. Iatrogenic is when an illness is caused to an individual due to consuming certain medical treatments or for participating in certain medical examinations. The psychologist Kirsch stated based on studies conducted that “antidepressants are not effective for mild or moderate depression, and that they only have a clinically meaningful benefit for severely depressed patients” (Advokat, Comaty, and Julien, 2014, p. 596-597). Overall psychologists seem to agree that combining both psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy are most beneficial to patients suffering from a disorder than using either treatment alone.
The most critical problem associated with the misuse of psychoactive drugs is misdiagnosing patients with no disorder or with the wrong disorder. For example, in our text book, there is information about how common it is for elderly people to remain underdiagnosed which results in insufficient treatment or wrong treatment being given to no treatment in some cases (p. 560). Elderly people are characterized as being easily angry, agitated, irritable, depressed, sad, lonely and hopeless which is linked to the misdiagnosing of mental disorders. Unfortunately, this causes elderly patients to not receive proper and adequate treatment because based on their evaluation they are a typical elderly person showing normal symptoms elderly people normally show, but in fact, these are symptoms of depression and other disorders that can be treated if they were to be diagnosed properly. Although, misdiagnosing is an issue among elderly patients, in some cases, elderly patients are given inappropriate and unnecessary medication that causes adverse effects to their overall health. For these reasons it is critical that psychologists evaluate their patients with extra care and properly.
Another issue that was discussed within this course was the use of antipsychotics among children and adolescents. Ethically, this is a significant concern for multiple reasons such as: majority of the medications used for disorders aren’t even FDA approved for children to consume, parents don’t agree that their children should be taking medications, and there are other therapies available to help the child better their symptoms. Based on my opinion, as a mother, I would not allow my child to consume drugs at such as early age. Children have the advantage that they are still developing and growing, meaning other therapies can be useful and help manage their symptoms. Some therapies that could be utilized include physical therapy, educational therapy such as reading, language, and writing, group therapy, family therapy, and individual therapy.
Receiving the proper treatment for disorders is difficult primarily because it isn’t free, that is why many people go on without being treated. As mentioned in Advokat, Comaty, and Julien’s (2014) book the most common reason for not receiving mental health care was due to not being able to afford it (p. 592). I think the cost of treatment will remain being one of the most common ethical issues for receiving proper treatment for mental disorders, also the misdiagnose of psychiatric disorders, psychologists are constantly misdiagnosing or underdiagnosing patients not allowing them to give appropriate or adequate treatment. Lastly, what will continue to be a challenge for the use of psychoactive medications is the misuse of them or the administration of the wrong medication.
References:
Advokat, C. D., Comaty, J. E., & Julien, R. M. (2014). Julien’s primer of drug action: A comprehensive guide to the actions, uses, and side effects of psychoactive drugs (13th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
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